CodeSOD: Take a Percentage

When looking at the source of a major news site, today's anonymous submitter sends us this very, very mild, but also very funny WTF:

<div class="g-vhs g-videotape g-cinemagraph" id="g-video-178_article_slug-640w" data-type="videotape" data-asset="https://somesite.com/videos/file.mp4" data-cinemagraph="true" data-allow-multiple-players="true" data-vhs-options='{"ratio":"560:320"}' style="padding-bottom: 57.14285714285714%">

Look, I know that percentage was calculated by JavaScript, or maybe the backend, or maybe calculated by a CSS pre-processor. No human typed that. There's nothing to gain by adding a rounding operation. There's nothing truly wrong with that line of code.

But I can't help but think about the comedic value in controlling your page layout down to sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-pixel precision. This code will continue to have pixel accuracy out to screens with quadrillions of pixels, making it incredibly future proof.

It's made extra funny by calling the video player VHS and suggesting the appropriate ratio is 560 pixels by 320- which is not quite 16:9, but is a frequent letterbox ratio on DVD prints of movies.

In any case, I eagerly await a 20-zetta-pixel displays, so I can read the news in its intended glory.

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